AstralBox
"Surround your Game" AstralBox (aka AstralOracle in America) is a game console by Astralitz Design released in 2020. It is noted as the world's first "surround" gaming console since it can accept up to 3 8K screens running seperately from each other without lagging out. Not all games are compatible with it's multi-screen technology and some high-end games are noted to lag (Universe Coaster for example). It supports up to 240fps gaming. (ultra framerates past 60) There are 4 models, AstralOracle 1000, AstralOracle K, AstralOracle Pro, AstralOracle S. The 1000 is the regular version, the K version is the same as 1000, but allows the user to activate boost clock. The Pro version has 5 extra gigs of ram, and an additional 0.5GHZ to the 16-core i9, and the S version is more compact and smaller, but the hardware is soldered on the console, unlike the others, which omits customization and fashion. (the S version cannot have it's micro SSD chip changed) To prevent from piracy and emulation, both the Astral line and the Razer line of consoles used x64 architectures instead of x86, so it requires a miracle of optimization to emulate similar in fashion to Apple's Macintosh motherboards. (As of 2018, Xenia/PS3 emulation is notable VERY demanding and went dozens of optimizations to various games on the Xbox 360, although Razers later were able to get full 60fps on it's emulations thanks to their so-called "overkill" specs) Features The game console is notably the same size as the Philip's CD-i, where both consoles are large sized to fit for it's engineering. The console supports 8K resolution and has 1 HDMI slot and 3 DisplayPort Xs, which is useful if you don't own an Astrallitz Hydra TV (a TV that folds out 2 more screens in 24k width and has Nvidia Surround technology inside) The console itself uses a power supply with 1000 watts and takes a computer power cord (the AC adapter which gaming rigs and monitors take) instead of an average AC adapter commonly used in game consoles. The console has Nvidia G-Sync built in and support for DirectX 13 and Vulkan. The I/O on the front consists of 2 USB 3.0 ports, as well as 2 Type-C ports, a AstralOracle logo for the power button, a disc slot. The I/O on the back consists of the AC Adapter which is a 3-rectangle adapter that goes to PC power supplies, and 1 Lightning HDMI and three DisplayPort X's, as well as an Thunderbolt IV on the back (which is for using Razer Cores to add an 2nd GPU to the mix if you need to render heavy workloads) Cables that support Hydra TVS must have at least 512GB/s and labeled "Hydra Ready". (Lightning HDMI supports up to 16K 120Hz and DisplayPort X supports up to 24K 120hz) The Quadro V6000 gives a special program which lies dormiant from other consoles; multiple displays in mosaic and G-sync. Turning G-Sync and mosaic on reduces screen-tearing on the multiple displays, and ensures that each screen gives an consistent framerate with eachother. The power button (which is a logo) and all of it's outline has adjustable RGBs lighting which can be adjusted from the control panel. The resolutions it supports are the following. The resolutions are usually optimized through superscaling through width and height. Ultrawide resolutions (4:1, 48:9) are best used for simulation games like Universe Coaster, Cities Skylines, Ashes, and Civilization. Note that though the console supports 8K resolutions, abysmal resolutions such as 8:6 (2x2 4:3) or 32:20 (2x2 16:10) can cause further lag to the console, depending on the game that you're playing. *1:1 *4:3 *3:4 (if your hooking 4 Hydras on top of each other) *8:3 *5:4 *5:3 *10:4 *16:9 *16:10 *17:9 *2:1 *4:1 (also compatible with the Astralitz Polyvision) *6:1 *21:9 (most used resolution for games) *21:10 *38:9 *38:10 *48:9 *48:10 You can plug in an keyboard or mouse if you plan to use this for a gaming desk, or if your using it like a workstation due to it's custom Quadro built in for photo editing and movie editing. As an anti-frustration if you game/software crashes, the ECC ram will be called in to correct the crashing errors to avoid potential data corruption, so you don't risk your savegames getting corrupted to avoid having to start all over. ' Controller The controller has RGB lighting on the D-sticks as well. *D-Stick: Analog stick for 3D movement. *Start/Select/Share *Home Button *Arrow Buttons (Up, Down, Left, Right similar in fashion to the Switch) *Analog Buttons: (Earth, Fire, Water, Air, Light, Dark) (there are 6 opposed to the common 4 each with adjustable glows) *Shoulder Buttons: LA, LB, LC, RA, RB, RC. *Motion Pad: Use to perform various things (draw up to Jump, press certain positions for other things) *Motion Controls: Use for various things like endless runner games, etc. There are also special controllers that the AstralOracle can take. A * means this is only compatible for certain genres of games (point and click games, first person shooters, etc) *AstralTablet: Based off the Wii U GamePad, game streams the console at 1080p 60fps. It's much more slimmer and has an much larger battery life (12 hours). Radar is playable at up to 50 yards away from the console, meaning you can use the tablet whereever you'd like in your house. *Crusader Controller: Has a screen that is used for drawing. It is used for drawing moves in strategy games. *AstralMote: Based of the Wii Nunchuk, this has one analog stick, voice input, a Start/Select button on the left and right, motion chip for aiming, and four action buttons.* Games The notable games include the following. A * means this game has a tenacity to lag if your playing on 24k width (x3 screens or on the Astralitz Hydra) and is not fully compatible with triple screen 8K. A + means this game is compatible with the keyboard and mouse controller. '''Keyboard and mouse are best played on simulation games and games like Civilization. As most games that support 8K are averagely around 70 to 150GBs, this is why AstralBox has 24TB SSD. ' 'When it comes to multiplayer, the Astral lineup of consoles is the ONLY major console lineup to still have free multiplayer. Sterlingson said that "this was to AVOID bandwagoning that crap by that stupid Microsoft". Same for the handheld RazerPocket. ' *Project Re:Link: Crusaders Quest (2) and Shadowverse (5)+ *Universe Coaster*+ *Of Gods and Earth: 3D creation sandbox game.+ (AstralBox exclusive) *Imagine: An oracle puzzle spiritual successor to Portal.+ (AstralBox exclusive) *Optimus: Open world action adventure game which is their take on Legend of Zelda x Sonic the Hedgehog. (AstralBox Exclusive) *Splatoon: Triple Threat (which was a collab commissioned by Nintendo for their success with the game Gommoth Legends) Programs Just like the RazerPocket, the AstralOracle also supports multi-tasking. The notable program it has is AstralBench which tests out your TV if it supports 8K and confirms if your 4 TVs plugged in can run seperately from each other in mosaic style to prevent tearing from each of the screen. Another notable program is Astral 3D, which is a 3D character maker and object maker, which is their take on 3D Maker by Microsoft. One accessory best used is the Astral Tablet, which is a special controller with a stylus and screen like the Wii U GamePad which is best used in Astral 3D. The console has an Photoshop based application called the AstralPhoto Engine, which you can edit, tweak, optimize your photos. It has the fanmade Waifu2x program built in so you can enlarge your images ''without worsening the quality. '''''Waifu2x will not scale further than 32k (17280p resolution) due to hardware straints. It takes averagely 10 to 30 minutes for Waifu2x to scale up to 32k. ''There is ''Astral Effects, where if you have an Astral Camera that features high color depth 8K imagery, you can edit the images or videos to add special effects to it. So let's say if your making an science-fiction space movie, or if your trying to make an fantasy action movie and you need like special witchcraft effects into it, or if your making like animals come out of special effects from humans (Planet of the Apes for example), the Astral Effects has gotten all that. One of the biggest programs yet is VirtualAstral, which is an virtual PC/remote access program by Oracle, which allows them to run abandonware operating systems and play old-school games on them running off the CPU and GPU (as the drivers by Astralitz are optimized from 10 to 98. 98 only runs up to 720p to avoid tiny start screens, XP runs up to 1080p, and 7 runs up to 4K, while 8 and upcoming support up to 8K.) Reception AstralBox has gotten positive acclaim so far, noting for it's use of multi-screen technology and new experiments. They noted how that they used motion controls again and had 6 analog buttons opposed to the average 4. With the overpowering specs, fans were like: *But can it run Crysis/Minecraft? *Let's purge this overpowered monster with the Pylon Purge! (Bayonetta Ultimate meme called the Pylon Purge of 200 Angels, where it was one of the most CPU demanding which can stress even up to the top of the line 20 threaded CPUs and sometimes freeze and crash. The only CPUs that wouldn't freeze/lag/crash at 1fps by the Pylon Purge are the 44 thread Xeons, Core i9s, Epycs and Threadrippers as it can choke up to 16 threads and up to 40 in 8K. Notably, a Tesla/Xeon Phi can also survive the Pylon Purge due to their coprocessor programming. During the "extreme" age. Bayonetta Ultimate held the record of being the most demanding game when it comes to the CPU-bound.) *But can you overclock it? (K version added turbo clock) *Your not allowed to upload ART on YouTube. (24k surround display) *Only costs $5,000 (this was priced at $700 due to it's extremely high specs at the time) *R.I.P the most powerful console ever (PS5 Pro and Xbox Two X which are at around 16 cores with 1.5GHZ with around 9 to 12 teraflops) *That consoles more powerful than my gaming PC I spent thousands of dollars on. (which was actually 10% of the actual price of all of the parts; the Quadro V6000, and the Core i9, which despite prices Astralitz was still chilling due to their mobile gaming gross and Patreon, which caused gamers and YouTubers to think that Astralitz is gonna end up doing a writedown by using overpowered PC specs in their game console and then selling them at low prices) *Who's gonna buy this to see how Quadros REALLY gonna game (Astralitz CLAIMED that the Quadro is much better at gaming, and they were right, but in truth the Quadro was overclocked a bit because Sterlingson complained that they were overpriced, so he decided to use special programs to overclock them to outperform the Titan XV without overheating) With the biggest specs for a huge game console; famous YouTubers did several experiments: *Can we run 12960p resolution?: One Youtuber decided to hook THREE Hydras onto his AstralBox, and decided to play Universe Coaster in a HUGE 12960p resolution. The game lags around to a solid 24fps, but if he plays on a huge park it stutters trying to load them all. Crusaders Quest runs nearly 42fps to rarely a cinematic 24fps as it's a less demanding game. Minecraft runs at full-framerate because the game isn't that demanding on GPU power compared to the others. **12960p resolution VS the AstralBox K: The same YouTuber went out and bought the K version (which has the turbo clock thing with extra heatsinks and fans) to see if 12960p can get less laggier with maximum boost clock. Using the boost clock of up to +0.6GHz on every core and +0.5GHz on the CUDA, he was able to ramp it up Universe Coaster to around 27fps on his huge park, and Crusaders Quest to around 55fps to 38fps. *But can it run Crysis?: One YouTuber also installed a homebrew Crysis 3 onto his AstralBox at 8K, and the game runs at maximum framerates on Very High. He tested it out with the 24k resolution trick and it runs faster than Universe Coaster. *Triple Displays: Are they Worth It?: A YouTuber checks out the use of triple displays and tries to see what action games can you game off using triple displays. *What it feels like to get an AstralBox: A PC gamer gets low fps on games like Witcher 3, Planet Coaster, and Deus Ex. Then, he rages with the low framerates and decides to buy an AstralBox instead, and then the gamer is seen with 1000% more framerates (200 to 300fps) *Rise of the Two Enthusiant Consoles: Pretty Good Gaming did a video on both the RazerPocket and AstralOracle, which are meant to put gamers to their extremes, and compared the specs to the mainline consoles to see if they're worth the extremely high specs. It has been noted as the first gaming console to use Quadros (which LinusTechTips proved it's a waste of money as the Titan X is faster in rendering times and poor optimization for gaming) as it's GPU. Notably, the Quadro is modified to not take any pin connectors and support for G-Sync and has higher clock speeds. The real advantage of the Quadros was that there was ECC ram support. On the limited edition package (which was larger and was limited edition which only existed 500,000) of these, you also get a Quadro GV100X Mini (32GB HBM3) except repainted with AstralOracle colors, features the all-new Lightning HDMI and DisplayPort X meant for their Hydras, and with a RGB fan. The advantage in the X version is that it has much higher clock speeds, optimization for gaming, special drivers that allow the GPU to bypass bottlenecking, and support for "GeForce" drivers, so it is also good for rendering/gaming. AstralOracles that were sold had a numbering saying x/500,000 Limited Edition on the top. On Amazon and Craigslist, it has been noted that people sell boxes of Quadros at around $1,000 to $5,000, likely to make a earning bargain out of it. Sales As of 2022, a total of 16 million AstralOracles were sold, with a fast start in the beginning, but a slow end as of 2022. It has been noted that most of the sales weren't actually by consumers or gamers, instead by professionals such as designers, programmers, etc. Despite the low sales, AstralOracle would still continue on to be a price-friendly "extreme-gamer" console targetting for professionals. (with a majority contributing to Operation: Miner 101) Without counting the amount of sales targetted at professionals, the AstralOracle sold less than the Wii U, making it a slow start for Astralitz Design, being worse than the RazerPocket in terms of sales. So far, the Astralphone was still the highest selling Astralitz Design product. Despite the low sales, it was still considered the underdog of the mainline console lineup, because just like Nintendo, they always try something new while Sony and Microsoft make underpowered PCs (because all it is is just a controller which you usually hook up to your PC with the same generic controller) Operation: Miner 101 In January 2021, a YouTube hacker released a video where he would try to use the console's overkill GPU/CPU to mine millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency. This video became viral, as many people started downloading that one app from the internet that allowed players to mine cryptocurrency, which would cause the console's GPU to stress out, but mine out dozens of dollars worth of currency. On March 2021, AstralOracles and RazerPockets got into a shortage due to the fact that people started buying them due to a viral trend. On May 2021, Sterlingson launched a patch that would "cease" the use of cryptocurrency mining on RazerPockets and AstralOracles, likely to save the console from viral hits. "Hope you had your months of fun. Miner 101 is over guys." Tour of Astralitz Design Shion Sterlingson, the producer of the AstralOracle, was interviewed on how they made the console. They used a special kind of SoC they invented that ensures that the CPU and GPU never get bottlenecked, and unlike Microsoft or Sony, they used an EXTREMELY high budget to make the console, where 90% of the money comes from their gross on the mobile division. (which are famous for the successfull F2P mobile MMOs like their Clash of Clans killer, Puzzle and Dragons killer, Candy Crush killer, Summoners War killer, etc and even balance put in their mobile progression).They chose the Core i9 and the Quadro because they wanted it to be a proper workstation/gaming console hybrid, with ECC RAM support. They used custom-made drivers for the Quadro so it would get 100% full optimization that GeForce cards have in terms of gaming. (so at this point Quadros would soon get 10x more gaming performance than GeForces because Quadros will gain more FLOPS and CUDA cores than GeForces at this point) Shion later on gave a tour of their production office, featuring Windows 11 PCs that startup with the Astralitz logo, a completely original motherboard with custom 40 core Xeons with ECC ram support overclocked at 4.0GHz up to an expansive 128MB of cache, complete with Quadro P6000s in SLI and 128GB of ECC DDR4, with 27/21 inch Hydras for each of the station. Each workstation has an RGB Astralitz Cherry MX keyboard and mouse, which their employees at the workstation can configure their colors they want. The motherboard inside consists of RGB lights, the case has 5 fans and a transparent plastic plate on the side. Some of their workstations run on a custom-made "Octavia" Hackintosh system meant for other commercial and workload purposes, Shion himself even stated that he has an "Hackinphone" (an smartphone that runs iOS on NON-Apple hardware) As the AstralOracle ended and with the start of the AstralGoddess, Astralitz Design released the Astralitz Quadro V6000X as they would later become a vendor partner with Nvidia to sell custom-made Quadro GPUs with less expensive materials and closer to GeForce prices. Their external Quadro features the following specs: *1 6-pin on the back of the card (same size and color features as the Titan Mini) *32GB GDDR6 with ECC Mode, *5000 CUDA cores with 1.75GHZ speed (so it's faster than the Titan XD in Quadro-like applications making it best for gaming too) *Support for DirectX13, Vulkan, and all GeForce gaming essentials (fans called it Quadro Gamers' Edition) *Double precision compute performance and driver support for 3D and video applications *Everything you need to be an all-in-one tasker (creative professional, 3D worker, gamer) *1 Lightning HDMI and 3 DisplayPort X ports (making it the first Quadro GPU to have an HDMI port) *Puron heatsink *Special exclusive control panel with promos for games on the home menu, clocking, dynamic super resolution, etc based off the open source AMD Radeon Graphics Settings. *Would be packed in AstralPCs (which is their take on minature PCs like the Zotac ZBOX) Successor The console which later be succeeded by the AstralGoddess in 2024, with the following specs; In the future, Astralitz will be focusing on home ultra graphics while Razer will be focusing more on their handheld ultra graphics (where it's the power of a Razer Blade Pro that you can fit on your pocket whereever you go) Astralitz the king of desktops, and Razer the king of mobiles. As seen on the AstralGoddess, Astralitz Design learned to make their own CPU and later their own GPU to maximize power. *"Vortex" SSD with 256TB (16K games are around 200GB) *Ultralizer: Turn 24fps films into ultra 16K 60fps! No more low FPS! Also applies to gaming videos which are locked to 30fps. *Astralitz Vortex CPU (3.5 GHZ, 24 cores and 48 threads, with 1GB of cache) *Quadro D6000X (64GB GDDR6X, 8800 CUDA cores, 35 teraflops, 2.5GHZ speed, Da Vinci architecture) *Takes AL micro SD carts up to 256GB. (only one 16K game can fit in there) *Has 5 puron fans for cooling After that is the AstralZeus in 2029, with the following specs; *"Champion" SSD with 8PB (32K games are around 400 to 500GB, while an hour of 32K AstralVideo is around 5TB to 20TB) *Support for Dynamic Super Resolution (turn 32K to up to 64K) *Astraltiz Champion CPU (5 GHz, 36 cores and 72 threads, with 4GB of cache) *Quadro S6000X (128GB GDDR7, 14890 CUDA cores, 79 teraflops, 3.9GHz speed, Sylunis architecture) *6 puron fans for cooling, and runs constantly quiet on video and loud depending on what games your playing And after that is the AstralLuna in 2035, with the following specs; *"Magi" SSD with 64PB (Astral-Shaded games were 2 to 10 terabytes each) *Support for GameWorks and all ultra-effects *TV cable support (so you can use your console as for like an U-verse substitution while the U-verse console gives the TV feed over to the console) *Astralitz Magi CPU (6.5 Ghz, 64 cores and 128 threads, with 24GB of cache) *Quadro I6000X (256GB GDDR7X, 22570 CUDA cores, 188 teraflops, 4.9GHz speed, Ilias architecture) *8 Cryo-luna fans for cooling And after that here is the AstralGenesis in 2043, with the following specs; *"Galaxy" SSD with 512PB (Ultra-rendering takes it up to 25 to 100TB. At this point, there are barely any AAA console games that are worth 100 gigabytes or less as gigabytes are turning into megabytes at this point) *Ultralizer X: Upscale films' quality to look like if they were actually performed from the human eye in real life. (128K) *Astralitz Galaxy CPU (8 GHz, 128 cores and 256 threads, with 128GB of cache, totalling it up to 1.024 terahertz CPU speed combining all of the cores) *Quadro A6000X (512GB HBMX, 38690 CUDA cores, 512 teraflops, 6.8GHz speed, Atlas architecture) *15 Sirius fans for cooling In 2050 the AstralHeaven will arrive, with the following specs: *"Olympus" SDD with 4 EB (exabytes) *AstralOS: Use your console from anywhere you go, including your phones. *Astralitz Olympus CPU (12 GHz, 256 cores and 512 threads, with 1TB of cache. *Astralitz Olympus GPU Unit (2TB Kinesis RAM, 83860 CUDA cores, 2.6 petaflops,12 GHZ speeds, making it an GPU with petahertz clock speed combining all cores) In 2060 the AstralDomain would strike at last as the biggest monster, with the following specs: *"Paradox" SSD with 512 EB *Real life simulator: Coming of age game where you get to experience reality in a real life within a console. *Astralitz Paradox CPU (26 Ghz, 512 cores and 1024 threads, with 16TB of cache.) *Astralitz Paradox GPU Unit (64TB Kinesis X RAM, 256929 CUDA cores, 36 petaflops, 30 GHz speeds) In 2072 Astralitz Design would end it's race to the yottabyte with the AstralZeta, with the following specs: *"Ultima" SSD with 16 yottabytes *Ultimate Time Traveler: Travel back in time to the olden internet using a secret wayback machine project by Astralitz since 2000! *Astralitz Ultima CPU (128 ghz, 4096 cores and 8192 threads, with 8 exabytes of cache) *Astralitz Ultima GPU (16 petabytes of Kinesis XYZ RAM, 550000 CUDA cores, 32 exaflops, 200 GHz speeds) Trivia *This is the first game console to take a 3 pronged power supply and AC adapter. (which is the exact same for desktop PCs and monitors) *This is the first ever video game console to target a more professional audience, such as content creators and large content production studios; probably due to it's ECC ram support and it's Quadro. Category:Fan Consoles Category:Home Consoles Category:2020 Category:Game Consoles